Weird news: Security Camera Films Meteor Streaking Across Ohio Sky

Saturday 8 October 2016

Security Camera Films Meteor Streaking Across Ohio Sky

It was the free firework display of the year.

A meteor streaked across the Ohio night sky on Thursday -- and the spectacular sight was caught on surveillance camera.

Footage filmed by Steve Hart's security cam in Anderson Township in Cincinnati at 10:47 p.m. shows the space debris suddenly appearing and growing massively in size.

It shrinks as it plummets to Earth, before moving towards the horizon. The video then cuts out.

Hart didn't actually see the astonishing display in person, but revealed on Facebook that he was "astounded" when his son first spotted the footage on his DVR.

"This camera records movement and stores it up to six days, and when I saw this, I pulled it off of the DVR and saved it to my computer," he told WCPO.

"I wish I would have been outside to see it!” he added.

Some 77 people have reported seeing the same fireball to the American Meteor Society, according to the organization's website.

It was spotted across the Ohio area, with other sightings coming from as far away as Missouri, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Cincinnati Observatory's Dean Regas, who saw the meteor from his backyard, told WLWT it was "one of the brightest I have ever seen."

Anyone see that bright #fireball at 10:45 pm tonight? It looked like a blue meteor streaking below the Moon.
— Dean Regas (@DeanRegas) November 20, 2015

So far in 2015, some 472 different fireballs -- counting those seen by at least five people or more -- have been spotted in the U.S., according to the AMS.

This latest fireball came the night after what had been expected to be the peak of the annual mid-November Leonid meteor shower.

The shower is made up of tiny sand-sized bits of debris and dust that crumble off the Tempel-Tuttle comet as it passes the Earth. The particles ignite when they hit our atmosphere, and usually put on quite a show.

This year's Leonid shower -- which was predicted to peak in the early hours of Tuesday and Wednesday morning -- was quieter than usual, however, with only an estimated 15 meteors streaking across the sky per hour, according to ABC News.

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